Eliot (T.S.) East Coker, The New English Weekly (Supplement), Easter Number, 1940, first appearance, 4pp., initialed presentation inscription from the author to Michael Roberts to first page, browning horizontal fold with some splitting, pencil note by Michael Roberts to foot, unbound, [Gallup A36], 324 x 227mm., 1940.

⁂ A presentation copy of the earliest appearance of the second of Eliot's Four Quartets, rare. This is the separately-issued Supplement that Gallup states was printed "after the edition of the complete issue...had been exhausted shortly before 23 May 1940". However a few copies that have appeared recently at auction (notably those inscribed to Anne Ridler dated "Easter 1940" indicate that these may have been printed earlier than thought.

Provenance:

Janet Adam Smith (1905-99) Scottish writer, literary editor and journalist. From 1930 to 1935 she was assistant editor at The Listener, where she did much to promote the work of new poets, in particular W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Herbert Read and Louis MacNeice. In 1936 she succeeded Michael Roberts as chief reviewer in Eliot’s quarterly The Criterion. She married Michael Roberts in 1935.

Michael Roberts (1902-48) English poet, writer, mathematician, critic and broadcaster. He taught at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle and while there began publishing both his own poetry as well as editing anthologies, the most celebrated of which was the Faber Book of Modern Verse.